Amano-Iwato,
the cave from within which the Sun Goddess Ama-terasu was successfully restored
to the world, and Gyobo Iwaya, the cave where the eight-hundred myriad deities
assembled to plan their restoration strategy, are situated on either side of
the river Amano-Yasugawara, in a heavily wooded preserve that is both
maintained by, and home to, the shrine complex Amano-Iwato Jinja, the “Boulder
Door of Heaven” shrine. Indirectly, by naming itself after the cave to which
Ama-terasu had withdrawn – and in which, therefore, her spirit somehow still
resides – this shrine complex manifests its purpose as the worship of
Ama-terasu. Indeed, instead of physically housing a shintai, or sacred
object in which the spirit of its kami can reside, centrally enshrined behind
the altar within the main shrine building, this shrine takes as its shintai
its entire namesake, the whole cave Amano-Iwato, as a holy place still suffused
with the spirit of Ama-terasu.

Of course,
nothing the visitor meets upon entering these grounds hints at this unusual
geophysical form of shintai. One passes under perfectly ordinary torii
(Plate 1a), one comes across a perfectly ordinary ablution well (Plate 1b),
perfectly ordinary stone lanterns (Plate 1c) line one’s path; even the kiosks
plastered with announcement-posters (Plate 1f), like the trees or stones (Plate
1d) reverentially decorated with sacred ropes, could be found at any shrine.
More unusual, though, is to encounter a statue of Tajikarao (Plate 1e), his
strong arms hoisting overhead, as if in a pose from the Yokagura dance drama,
the massive boulder he has just extricated from the mouuth of the cave
Amano-Iwato; and more unusual still are the interiors of the various shrine
buildings themselves.

For these
interiors, each in its own unique way, resemble the stage of the Takachiho
Jinja Kagura-den and call to mind the sacred space before the mouth of
Amano-Iwato where the first Kagura was danced. Within the central portico of
the first main shrine building (Plate 2a), for example, behind the large,
grate-lidded offerings coffer, on a table, accompanied by food offerings, and
behind a gohei, there stands a mirror (Plate
2d) as if ready once more (Plate 2c) to capture the Sun Goddess’s spirit, as
did the very similar mirrorrevealed within the mouth of the stage-cave when Tajikarao finally
removes the boulder; and the adjacent portico to the right shelters an enormous
drum (Plate 2b), an oversize cousin of the smaller one that accompanies the
nightly Takachiho Yokagura.

In another
shrine building (Plate 4a), this one exceedingly dark, a point of light deep in
the darkness (Plate 4b) turns out to be a tiny window (Plate 4c), looking out
in the direction, probably, of Amano-Iwato itself, with a mirror set before it,
also brimming with light (Plate 4d), the whole impression being that of a
recreation of the original scene before the cave, in the cold and the dark,
when the ancient gods gathered to watch Amë-nö-uzume’s marvelous dance and its
miraculous effect. The entire shrine complex, for that matter, seems prepared
at any time to host a reenactment, in the form of Yokagura, complete with
requisite onlookers, of that event of long ago, with the expectation of a
comparably miraculous outcome today.

A
pleasant, meandering, woodland path, more or less following the course of the
heavenly river Amano-Yasugawara (Plate 5), leads in fifteen minutes or so from
the main complex of shrine buildings of Amano-Iwato Jinja to the sacred cave
Gyobo Iwaya.

A
signpost along the way indicates the approximate location of the cave
Amano-Iwato, across the river and off-limits to the casual visitor. Finally,
just as a cavernous opening in the hillside comes into view, with a sacred
straw shimenawa rope stretched across it from one side to the other, a
sequence of torii signals the end of the path and the sacred presence of the
cave Gyobo Iwaya (Plate 5c). Already before the first of these torii, and on as
far as the very floor of the cave itself, the ground on either side of the path
is densely bedecked with innumerable low cairns (Plate 6), little stone towers
built by visiting believers using small stones brought with them expressly for
this purpose, hoping in this way to manifest their worship and to realize their
prayers.

Within
the cave, surrounded by these cairns, there stand two shrine-cabinets: one, set
rather far back, is virtually inaccessible; the other (Plate 7b), closer to the
end of the path, houses yet another great round mirror (Plate 7c), accompanied
by flasks and dishes bearing offerings of sake and food, by gohei, and
by other items representative of the objects gathered and prepared as offerings
to Ama-terasu by the gods who had assembled here during their quest to entice
her out of the nearby cave Amano-Iwato.

The
mirrors encountered in the Takachiho Jinja Yokagura performances, in the
various shrine buildings of Amano-Iwato Jinja, or in the cave Gyobo Iwaya, are
certainly all evocative of the Sun Goddess Ama-terasu and of the original
mirror, prepared at the behest of the eight-hundred myriad deities by the
heavenly stone-cutting goddess Isi-köri-dome-nö-mikötö, that captured
Ama-terasu’s spirit, but they themselves are accorded no special reverence in
that connection. The original mirror, however, is another matter. For it is
this mirror, endowed with all her spiritual attributes, and therefore serving
as her earthly spiritual replica, that Ama-terasu bestowed upon her grandson Ninigi,
along with two other imperial regalia, when she had him descend upon the earth
to take up earthly rule. The three imperial regalia were jointly to empower his
rule on earth, but the mirror, in particular, he was to worship as he would
worship Ama-terasu herself.

.Originally
with Ninigi, this mirror was then with Ninigi’s great-grandson Jimmu when he
left Kyushu for Honshu to become the first Yamatö emperor of Japan, and was
enshrined, through successive emperors after Jimmu, within the Imperial Palace,
which was where the sacred rites of worshipping the Sun Goddess took place in
continuing fulfillment of the sacred obligation Ama-terasu first placed upon
Ninigi. Indeed, there were particular rituals in the worship of Ama-terasu that
only the emperor, as the highest priest and sole intermediary with Ama-terasu
on behalf of his subjects, could perform, a situation that may be the obverse
of the coin whose face is the belief that imperial power comes to the emperor,
through the sacred rites of enthronement, only by direct transmission from the
Sun Goddess.

Eventually,
however, some time around the beginning of the first century, the Sun Goddess
made manifest her will that the mirror, and the attendant worship of
Ama-terasu, be relocated instead to a Grand Shrine to be erected at Ise (Plate
8), and it is there that this mirror was consequently enshrined, there to
remain to this day, a most highly revered object of worship, carefully
protected within the inner sanctuary of the shrine Naikū (Plate 8d), so holy
that no ordinary person may even pass through the outer gate of Naikū, let
alone approach the mirror itself, and tended to, as it were, largely only by
the abundant food-princess deity Töyö-ukë-bime-nö-kamï, who is enshrined within
the inner sanctuary of the nearby shrine Gekū (Plate 8e).